Dead Fred
by Rumbleroar69
Summary: "Fredrick Gideon Weasley, I regret to inform you that you are dead." As Fred makes his way through the "life" of a ghost, he soon finds that being dead isn't all it's cracked up to be. Rated for mild language.
1. Dead?

**Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter**

Even with my eyes closed I could tell it was bright. Very bright. I could hear two people murmuring a little bit away. I opened my eyes and immediately shut them again. Yes, it was indeed blinding. I tried to pick myself up, but my body felt like lead. I decided to just open my eyes and deal with it. Maybe I'd tell someone to turn the light off. When I opened my eyes, I tried to turn my head because the light was _right there,_ but I couldn't I tried speaking. Nope. Apparently I'm a mute now. I couldn't do shit! But I really needed this light to go out soon because my retinas were burning even with my frequent blinks. The two people who were talking walked over. One was a rather attractive woman, and the other (also pretty good looking) was a man with an amazing beard. Sorry, but I love goatees.

"Fredrick Gideon Weasley," said the man with the beard, " I regret to inform you that you are dead."


	2. Learning

Dead? I'm not dead! I tried talking just once more. Again, nothing. The woman then stepped forward. She was a looker. Her hair was long, straight and black, and she had cinnamon brown eyes. Her teeth were a tad crooked, but that gave her a little character.

"Mr. Weasley," she said, reading from a piece of paper. I noticed her Scottish accent almost immediately. "You died on May 2, 1998, at approximately 7:45 p.m. We would like to welcome you to the Afterlife." _Afterlife? Shit, what about my life-life?!_

As though Mr. Goatee had read my mind, he said, "Unfortunately, you cannot come back to life unless there are some extreme conditions, and I warn you to stay away from those. After reading your record, we have decided not to tell you those conditions so as not to tempt you." When he finished, he looked at me expectantly.

"What do you want, I've alr-" I stopped. I could talk now. _Could I move, too?_ I tried. No, I couldn't move, too. "God dammit," I muttered.

"Mr. Weasley," the woman started, but I cut her off with, "Call me Fred, please. I'm not formal." She sighed and continued, "Mr. Weasley, I am going to be your guide to the Afterlife. My name is Emily Cole. If you could move you would notice I am not currently tangible. That is because I am alive. I am a medium and this is merely my voice. You aren't technically seeing me, but rather my soul."

"Why aren't I in Heaven? I'm not that dastardly, you know," I said. I did want to know why I didn't see bright clouds and blue skies filled with harp-playing angels and was instead in a probably black room with a very bright light right above my face.

"You may have heard of unfinished business," Mr. Goatee said.

"Well, no shit, I have unfinished business!" I shouted indignantly, "I died when I was twenty!" I wanted to yell more, but my voice was suddenly silenced. I had just left everyone I knew behind! I didn't even get to see Harry fight Voldy!

"Mr. Weasley," Emily said again, "We know this must be very hard for you. You must bear with us. The Afterlife can be rather fun, really. I can help you to see that." By this point, I honestly didn't care if she was as beautiful as Aphrodite, I didn't like her. I had met the Hogwarts ghosts, and if I weren't a poltergeist, then the Afterlife wouldn't be fun. I wanted to see my family and friends. I wanted out of this place. I had never feared death, but twenty is just too young to die.

"I must inform you," Mr. Goatee said mournfully, "You aren't really a ghost that others can see, yet. You are currently amorphous to any but the dead and mediums." _The Afterlife sucks_ , I decided. _What's the point in being dead if you can't even be seen?_

"Mr. Weasley," I wished she'd just call me Fred already, "you are about to leave this place. You will be in the Land of the Living. Are you ready?"

"Whatever," I groaned, finally getting to speak again. Yes, the Afterlife was indeed going to suck.


	3. My day gets even worse!

The light was gone, thank Merlin, but now there was something much worse. My funeral. Mum was sobbing into dad's chest while he cried into her hair. George was at my casket whispering final words to my dead body. It was odd seeing someone who was usually so happy crying. Emily put an invisibility charm on herself and walked forward as I followed closely behind. I had almost never seen Ron cry, but now...I almost felt bad for teasing him so much. I walked up to George. I wanted to do something, anything. He had to know I was here.

"George?" I said. He didn't respond. I tried to touch him. Maybe that would let him know I was here. He shuddered, but it was probably with a fresh wave of tears. I, however, felt like my hand had been dipped in boiling water and let out a yelp of pain. No wonder ghosts hated being walked through. I turned to my family and friends, all of whom were crying. I turned back to my body. If I'm a ghost, I possess things, right? I asked myself, knowing there was only one way to find out. I walked up to my deceased body and touched it. Nothing happened. _Maybe if I…._ My dead self's mouth was open, so i tried to "enter" through there.

Next thing I knew, Emily and the attendees were screaming, and George had fallen backwards in surprise. I looked at myself. I had definitely possessed my corpse.

"Sweet!" I exclaimed. I was sort of alive again! I looked out at everybody. Emily was still invisible and no one had noticed her scream over their own. They all looked terrified. "George?" He looked up at me and started bawling. "Wha-" I stopped when I realized my skin was slowly flaking. This wasn't supposed to happen. _Whoops, I messed up._ I looked up at where I thought Emily might be, hoping she could read the minds of ghosts, but nothing. I had to find out how to unpossess something. I willed myself to leave my dead body. Maybe I should have worked on getting a stronger will while alive, because this wasn't working at all.

"Um...hey, guys!" I said while still trying to find a way out of this. George stared at me for a while with large, scared brown eyes. Is it possible for a dead guy to say something's killing him, or…. "Sorry, for, uh...this," I gestured to myself, causing myself to deteriorate a little more. I grimaced. Okay, nevermind. When my finger fell off, I grimaced. Mum screamed. _Reasonable._

"Good, God almighty!" Lee Jordan shouted. _Yeah, I feel you._ Dad fainted. _Yep, three...two...one...and…_ Ron passed out, too. I laughed, and more of me flaked away.

"Like father, like son, amiright?" I wheezed (it was getting pretty hard to talk), hoping someone else would laugh. My hopes were crushed. Emily undid the invisibility charm on herself and walked towards me.

"This is probably going to hurt. A lot," she said, raising her wand.

"Wait, what are you going to do?" I asked. She replied with a simple, "I'm going to exorcise you. Hold still." _Oh, no. No, no, no._

"But I still have so much to say to everyone!" My voice was getting pretty hoarse now. "You can't take me away now!" I tried to move but found my body was too frail. I panicked. "Don't! Please! Let me talk to them!" Emily did not let me talk to them. She performed complicated movements with her wand and whispered words that I couldn't quite hear. My body fell limp. I was standing in front of it, next to Emily.

"Why?" I shouted, "Why would you do that? I needed to tell them all so much!" She didn't so much as bat an eye as she turned to my loved ones and performed a large memory charm. She ran to hide behind in the woods behind the Burrow before the funeral attendees knew what was happening.

When I trudged over, the first thing out of Emily's mouth was, "You bloody moron! How could you?" She said a lot more, but I wasn't listening. I was looking out at my confused family, who were trying to figure out who had moved me. I felt like crying. Dad had woken up and was groggily mourning but Ron was still out cold. George was once again crying over me. Mum didn't seem to know what to do with herself and Percy looked about the same. Bill had his head down as his shoulders shook and Charlie looked like a lost child. Ginny was choking back sobs while Harry attempted to comfort her. I looked back at Emily after noticing a lack of angry sounds. She still practically oozed anger, but at least she wasn't yelling.

"Can we go now?" I said. I didn't want to be here any longer. Emily nodded, but said nothing. She pulled out a small, ornate box and opened its lid.

"Get in," she said in a forceful voice. "Come on!" she exclaimed when I stared at the box, "It's just like possessing a body. Get in the opening." I obliged, not wanting to get shouted at anymore. Today was bad enough. I had crashed my own funeral and...well, I couldn't think of anything aside from that and being dead, but do I even need anything worse to prove my point?

I noticed immediately that I hadn't possessed the box, I had just put myself in it. Possessing felt like you were what you had taken over. This just felt like I had entered a room and couldn't control anything. _Hm, learning already._

The Afterlife still sucks, though.

 **A/N: This one's a bit longer, but I hope you like it! Thanks to all of the people who have followed/favorited/reviewed/or simply read this story. It means a lot!**


	4. Dolls and Other Devilish Things

**A/N: Sorry it took so long to update, I have been pretty busy. But here we are with the fourth installment of Dead Fred. Big thanks to anyone who favorited, followed, reviewed, or even just read this. It means a lot!**

I sat in the box for a while (even though I was sure Emily had apparated at some point) and was starting to get bored when the lid opened.

"Okay, all you have to do," Emily explained as if I were two, "is get out of the box, just like you got in." I did as she said. I don't know what I expected, but a busy street in the heart of London wasn't it. I was about to ask why, but in answer (or the closest I would get to one) she led me into a dank little shop. It reminded it me strongly of Professor Trelawney's classroom. It smelled bad and the only lights were from dim candles. However, as I turned to look all around the store, there was something much worse than stench and bad lighting; the creepiest dolls I had ever laid eyes on. Granted, I was never a big fan of dolls and mannequins anyway, but these ones….They were downright terrifying. Half of them were missing eyes and limbs. Some had cracks all over their faces. Then, there was the occasional doll whose eyes (or eye) would follow you. I chill went down my back. Another thing I was quickly learning was that ghosts could get very scared.

I followed Emily, nearly running int- no, _through_ her, as I really kind of loathed the little dolls already. When we got to the front desk, I finally saw what kind of nut-job was running this place. It was a plump, elderly woman, with very long, bushy white hair. She had to be older than one hundred years old! She had small spectacles resting at the end of her long, pointy nose. The woman's eyes were a pale and piercing grey, but yet, they appeared very kindly. That didn't stop me from still wanting to shout at her to get the damn dolls out of the place, though.

"Esmeralda," started Emily, talking a bit louder than what I thought was necessary, "this is Fred. He recently passed on and I have been assigned as his guide."

"Ah," Esmeralda whispered in a cracked and hoarse voice. "Follow me, dear boy." She hobbled off through a door behind the counter. Well, not a _door_ , per say, more of a wall of beads. Forgetting I was dead for a moment, I walked around the counter and to the back and even attempted to move the beads out of my face before remembering. I guess that's why I wasn't put in Ravenclaw, I thought to myself, smiling slightly.

Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the Afterlife really _didn't_ \- Oh Merlin, never mind….

The back was a _very_ disturbing image. Books that looked to be bound in skin, candles that gave off the putrid odor of rotting flesh, upside-down pentagrams….Who the hell was this lady? I tried to turn around, but Emily was blocking the "door."

 _Oh, wait…_ I walked forward through Emily, and oh God did I regret it! The boiling water feeling was this time spread throughout my whole body, not just my hand. Emily didn't flinch. I gaped at her.

"I'm used to it, Weasley, now if you don't mind, please re-enter the room," she said with a satisfied smirk. I scowled. Maybe if Mr. Goatee were my guide this would've been better.

"So," I started conversationally, "what's with all the sata- I mean, uh, stuff?"

"Just the things I confiscate on missions." _Missions?_

"What-" I started to ask what she meant, but I cut off. Not by someone else taking, but by what they were doing. Esmeralda had "peeled away" her skin with a very thick wand, unveiling another layer underneath. This layer was a lot younger. The hair was still white and bushy, her eyes were still grey, and she was still a little plump, but she still gave off an air of youth. I was struck dumb.

"But...how? Why?" I was in a frenzy. Why had we never learned this in Hogwarts? Well, okay, never mind. Now that I thought about it, maybe it was good that they didn't teach stuff like that. I then wondered what spell it was, before remembering I was dead and it would do me no good.

"Esmeralda works in the Spirit Division at the Ministry. She goes to Muggle homes disguised as an old medium to rid houses of evil spirits," Emily explained, trying to smother laughter.

"I take a liking to objects like these," Esmeralda explained, gesturing to the things around her. Her voice was much less ancient sounding. "I use the dolls in the front room to ward off unwanted Muggles who come snooping around. I enchant them to move and follow people so they get scared and leave." Even with the knowledge that she wasn't someone who worshiped the Devil, the place still creeped me out.

"Why am I here?" I asked Emily.

"We need to find out what kind of spirit you will be so that we know how to make you tangible. Esmeralda is an expert in this kind of thing, so I brought you to her," she told me in a matter-of-fact voice. Esmeralda then walked over holding one of the creepy half-human books, and flipped it open, mumbling to herself. She seemed to find what she was looking for, as she gave a triumphant, "Ah!"

She looked me straight in the eye and I backed away slightly. She studied me a long while before finally whispering, "You definitely have unfinished business, but you also seem...trapped. Like there is something else holding you back." She started speaking in a normal voice again, but to Emily. "This ghost cannot cross over until you can find what is holding him back and fix it. Otherwise, he is stuck in this state indefinitely." Emily looked horrorstruck.

"But," she started, as her face paled, "don't things like this usually involve-"

"Yes," Esmeralda cut her off. The two then moved very close to one another and started whispering, shooting me glances every few moments.

Now, no amount of dolls could've scared me more than two women whispering unknown things about me. What did I do to deserve this?


	5. Flashbacks of Fear

"So, Emily, what exactly were you and, um, Esmeralda talking about?" I asked casually, as their conversation ended.

"Oh, nothing," Emily replied, though there was something in her voice that convinced me that it was much more. She was smiling nervously, which only made me more curious.

"You two were talking about something," I said with slight anger, "and I wanna know what it was." Emily didn't reply and simply gave me a long, suffering look. After putting the human bond book away, Esmeralda joined them and said in a calm voice, "Let's go back to the front of the shop, shall we? We'll discuss you," she pointed at me, "later," and she walked out. I had a plan. A half-baked plan, but a plan.

"You go on ahead, Emily, I'll catch up. I want to look around a bit in here, y'know, see what there is to see," I said in my most innocent voice, which really wasn't all that innocent. Emily stared at me warily, but shrugged and went after Esmeralda. Perfect, I thought, it's working. I turned to the shelf of books and looked for the one recently used, a hard feat as they all looked pretty similar. I soon found it was the least dusty one and tried to pull it off the shelf. God damn it! I went right through the book. I went right through the everything and I needed to start remembering that. Huffing, I trudged to the front room.

"Did you see all the sights?" Emily snickered and I tried to wipe the upset-pouty expression off my face. I turned to the counter with a new, more blunt plan in play.

"Can I, uh, examine," I wanted to sound professional in the hopes of raising my chances, "that book you were just reading? Please?" It took me a moment to realize that Esmeralda looked old again.

"No," she said simply. I gaped at her, feeling the Weasley Temper getting to me. I wished I taken after dad in that area right then. It took a lot to get him angry and being calm probably would've worked better than yelling. But oh, well. I shouted at them both, curiosity and anger and fear all welling up inside me, wanting to know what was keeping me back, yearning to find out why I had to die at the age of _twenty_. They appeared horror struck. At first I thought it was my rant (which had included some, erm, _choice_ words). But really, it was something a bit more impressive. I had caused one of the creepy doll shelves to rattle and shake and fall over. The dolls were not happy. I had always considered my biggest fears to be either losing family or needles. The former is self explanatory. The latter, I may need to catch you up on.

When I was seven, I went to St. Mungo's for a regular check up. And shots. No kid likes shots, and as such, I flipped out. I did NOT want those things near me. So, when the healer tried to give me shots, I tried to get away. It didn't work out like that. Mum was holding me in place as I squirmed and cried, pleading to be free. Now, Wizard needles seem to be a little different from Muggle needles. Since we don't have crazy machines do things for us, our needles are just a tad jagged, and learned the hard way. The shot was very close to my arm and I was still flailing. That's when, instead of the needle going into me on its own accord, I went into it. Everything happened so quickly, but the aftermath showed me how things had gone. I kept swinging my arms and the healer was still holding the evil little syringe and the jaggedness cut me open. Not too much, but enough to need medical attention. My fear started there. I would freeze up when around anything that even resembled a needle. Five year-old Ron took it like a champ, and I still resent that.

So, back to the present matter. I was starting to think dolls were going to be my worst fear now, and really, who wouldn't? An army of mad ceramic children, some of them life size, coming after you for disrupting them. Aren't things supposed to be afraid of ghosts? Not the other way around? I felt screwed. Until...Esmeralda waved her wand lazily and they all fell. She was bursting with laughter, clutching at her sides. She gazed at my terror-stricken face for a split second and started up again, even louder.

"I told you, I control them," she wheezed, "You should'a seen your face, boy!" She set off on another peal of laughter. I was offended to say the least. Emily, too, was laughing.

"And," _giggle_ , "I thought," _chuckle_ , "you were," _snigger_ , "the prankster!" she finished. Had I not been dead, I was sure my face would have well surpassed the color red. Now not only did I fear dolls, but I hated mediums.

"OKAY!" I finally shouted, done with their laughter and ready to do something about my being dead, "Let's go!" And I stormed out with them in my wake.

 **A/N: Sweet Jebus, I suck at updating. This one's a tad shorter, but the next chapters will be put up on a more normal schedule. I left out the rant because, like it said, I was planning on using some vulgar, but I think we're fine where we are. Thank you for reading and whatnot. Hope you like it!**


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